Don't know if anyone here is into Football Manager, or World Wide Soccer Manager as it is known as in the U.S, but I brought the game today after playing the demo and enjoying the 3D match display.

Its supposed to be a great game, but no one will ever know at this rate. SI and SEGA, knowing the the FM and its previous alias Championship Manager series is just about the most popular PC game series of all time. They know the demand is absolutely huge.

However, this year they went for DRM, apparently to stop piracy and make the gaming experience better for the end user (you dont need the CD). Moving away from the obvious issues that arise with DRM, like the 'rental' argurment and the problems if people reinstall windows, its seems SI and SEGA have cocked up the release of this game on an unprecedented scale.

Thousands upon thousands of users have brought the game today but cant play it. Softanchor, the authentification company have left users with errors crawling out their arses. It claims users are not online and for the lucky few that can actually verify their copy, it asks for the CD key everytime they open the game. It seems that the Softanchor servers cannot handle the sheer number of people trying verify their copy. The phone activation apparently crashed and redirects UK users to and overseas sales companies. There is also the problem that the printed keycode on the back of the FM2009 manual offers '0' and 'o' and '1' and 'i' as the same symbol, making getting the right keycode a bluddy mission. Im on Football Manager Live and so many people are desperatly searching for alternative methods to get round this and its just incredible that DRM, designed to combat piracy, is seemingly encouraging it. People who pirate will alway do it, people who don't and cannot play the game because of DRM will move towards it.

SI claim it isnt a problem with DRM, its is that the codes are not legible on the softanchor server. Then again, without DRM you wouldn't have the problem of inillegible keycodes